I'm reading a book set in the early 1980's,
and one of the characters,
who doesn't want to speak to her ex-husband,
leaves her phone off the hook.
Even in my youth,
this phrase was archaic;
phones no longer had actual hooks
to hang the handpiece on.
Do people even have phones they can leave off the hook?
One of my phones can't even be unplugged,
as it connects wirelessly.
Even if I turn it off,
the voice mail will pick up,
creating the possibly false impression
that I want you to leave me a message,
and that I will listen to that message.
How do we communicate to the world
that we don't want to speak to anybody?
I guess we don't.